Chatelaine au la echelle
by RachaelRose94
Summary: just something short and sweet. it is an english project and my version of a french lais


Rachael Bryant

Yr 9 English Lai

Portfolio entry

Châtelaine au la échelle

This Breton lai was sung to me and as I understand this is the truth of those words.

In Brittany where the Bretons are from there is a Lady worthy of the most beautiful things. She is loyal, courtly, beautiful and wise and acts nobly to all. The Lady's cousin, the king was spiteful, unloyal, adulterous and unfaithful to all. The lady was very distressed and lonely living with the king as she was locked in his tower, the cause of the kings jealousy at giving her away to someone else more worthy of her love. The lady pleaded with the king "my king, my captor, Elroy please I am suffering in my loyalty to you I am begging to be set free it is lonely up in my tower. His only response was "I will give you a maid that you can befriend; she shall live in the tower with you. My lord Marquis send for madame Sergiane, she is to be my lady's new friend." The lord left quickly to do the kings bidding and Reine felt a sudden throng of pain, love's keeper had shot an arrow so sharp and strong into her chest, right through to her heart and there it lodged giving her great anguish at being away from her love.

The lady did not see her lord again and was missing him quite severely and was now feeling a different sort of lonely as Sergiane had cured her longing for company; she pined for her lord and had many restless nights tossing and turning about in anguish, many thoughts keeping her awake; 'Does he love me back?', 'Will I ever be with him?', 'How can we escape?'.

A week after Reine spoke with her king her maid, Sergiane, received a request to go converse with the king. She was overjoyed at the prospect of speaking with the king but saddened by her lady's behaviour and realised that she must tell the king at once that she was very ill but not that she was ill for love of Marquis because that would get him sent away. "My king, you wished for my presence!" "Yes, how is my lady Reine doing with you as her friend?" "She confides in me a lot but she is quite ill up in the tower and has not been sleeping at all this week, she needs to see life-she has no experience of at all...forgive me your majesty, I have spoken out of turn." "Be gone! How dare you speak that way to me, if you weren't my lady's friend I would have you sent away".

Marquis went about doing the king's bidding but he too was quite ill; like the lady he had not slept in a week also and the anguish he felt at being in the grasp of pain and suffering every time he remembered her sweet, full rose coloured lips and perfect cheek bones set on a pale face was so great he sometimes doubled over with feeling. The lord new where the lady was kept as he had often heard the king talk about it and he set off in the depths of darkness one night to find her. There was supposed to only be one entrance to the tower and that was heavily guarded with one guard patrolling the bottom of the stairs and another on a landing about half way up, but Marquis new of a secret entrance that only the king used as he had eavesdropped accidentally one fine evening at a banquet the king had hosted.

He hurried off to the entrance and made his way up the stairs being careful as to not make a single sound. When at last he reached the top of the stairwell he found a single key hanging above his head just in his reach (as he was about the same height as the king) and he took it down hurriedly and opened the door to find his love looking very downcast and upset, then he caught sight of himself in her mirror and found that she looked quite like himself. He was overjoyed at the prospect that she felt the same way about him as he did her. Walking to her bed he knelt down beside it and whispered to her "my love, my lady, my Reine I am so in love with you that I have not slept all week for thinking of your delightful face" "Oh Marquis, my lord, you have relieved me of great stress with your words of love as I have not slept either for questioning myself if you loved me". They embraced tenderly at once their movements and touches filled with the love they had bottled up inside and fell asleep quite sated with one another. They slept quite late and only woke when they heard a shout, "You, my lord, you have betrayed me and my trust go to your bedchamber and pack your stuff". Poor Marquis had been exiled to an island off the coast where he would be alone and unable to get back across for the ocean was very dangerous.

The Lady was so grief stricken she lay down and didn't get up for quite a while. She had a sudden thought 'I can't just lay around here i have to get out and rescue my love from the island'. So the next time her good friend Sergiane came she begged and pleaded with her to set her free when she left to go to sleep next. Sergiane agreed to help her as long as she was allowed to go as well because she did not wish to be left behind for she did not know what punishment should be bestowed upon her if she was still there when the king found Reine gone in the morning.

Long before the cock crows the two ladies set of for the ship that would take them across the treacherous waters between them and her love, they needed a ship that was easily manoeuvred and nimble enough to skip across the tumbling waves that crash down so hard that it could snap a ship in half. With them they took sufficient clothes for the three of them and enough food to last many months.

When aboard the ship shook and shivered and finally began floating across the pounding waves at such a pace that the ladies began to feel quite ill so they sat down and fell asleep awaking the next day stuck on a sunny sand bay one hundred metres from the island. The water was quite shallow and Reine immediately began wading fervently towards the beach in a desperate search for her lord.

Marquis had reached the island and been left there some days ago without food nor water and he felt quite a bit hazy and dehydrated. When he saw the two ladies running along the beach calling his name he thought he was hallucinating, dreaming-"I must be dreaming...there is no way that is my love and her friend".

"Marquis, Marquis, and my love we're here at last...Oh I'm so happy, overjoyed with feeling".

"Reine, is that you darling, is it truly?" "Yes! Yes!" and she launched herself at him such an unladylike gesture yet so graceful her movements and together they were joined once and forever.

"She is gone! Guards were you not watching, were you fallen in slumber while duty was calling? You fool, you fool what have you done, and how can you fail me so?" "Sir, king if I may, it was our choice to let the maidens go. You were unjustly keeping her ladyship Reine here against the word of the lord, she may as well have been dead, and in the name of the lord we did as is right and set her free to experience love with our lord Marquis as should be." "How dare you? How dare you do such a thing? All of you, all of you will receive the capital punishment for treachery against the monarchy." "We do not care we shall die in good graces with God and will not be harmed". This angered the king so much that he started to pace but he was walking backwards and he fell right off of the top of the tower.

The end


End file.
